The Mission of the Christ and of His Church

At a very young age, Jesus had a firm grasp on, a profound clarity around, and an intense focus for doing His Father’s business. And Jesus was relentless in carrying out His mission. Furthermore, there can be no doubt, upon reading the gospel accounts, about the exact nature of the mission of Jesus Christ. First of all, Jesus came because He was sent by the Father. (Jn. 8:42) He did not come of His own initiative but He was sent by God the Father for a very specific purpose. Jesus came to lay His life down for His sheep. (Jn. 10:11) Jesus came to save His people from their sins. (Matt. 1:21) Jesus came in order to explain the Father to us, to reveal God to His elect. (Jn. 1:18) Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil. (1 Jn. 3:8) Jesus came to secure eternal life for those believing in Him by giving His life for them. (Jn. 3:16) Jesus was anointed by the Spirit of the Lord to preach the gospel to the poor, to proclaim release to the captives, to announce recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed and to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. (Lu. 4:18) The mission of Jesus Christ is obvious from Scripture. There can be no possibility of confusing it without doing tremendous damage to the plain record of Scripture.

When Jesus had accomplished His mission, and set the plans in place for the birth of His Church, He gave plain instructions to His immediate followers. These instructions are impossible to misconstrue when interpreted with the respect they deserve. Jesus left his followers with a simple and clear command: “go and make disciples of all nations, and baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 28:19) In other words, do not limit your work to Israel, but extend your disciple-making enterprise to all people groups without exception. These are the final words of Jesus Christ before He ascended to the Father. Jesus also told his disciples during this time, “Thus it is written, that the Christ would suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem.” (Lu. 24:47) The followers of Christ were witnesses of His personal earthly mission and as witnesses they were charged with preaching repentance and forgiveness of sins to all the nations. Hence, we see the mission of the Church: preaching the gospel, which is the good news that repentance and forgiveness of sins is now extended to all the nations.

Since the mission of Christ and the mission of the Church is the supernatural conversion of souls through the gospel of repentance and forgiveness, I thought it would be a good idea to examine how major spiritual leaders in the NT interacted with their respective political system when given the opportunity. We begin with John the Baptist. John the Baptist had an encounter with Herod the tetrarch over his unlawful conduct with Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. John made no appeal to human law. He never gathered a band of folks together in order to change the civil codes. He appealed to the law of God and called Herod to repentance. John was interested in changing Herod, not the laws governing his culture.

Jesus stood before Herod and Pontius Pilot. Pilot examined Christ and gave Him every opportunity to defend Himself. Jesus never opened His mouth except to inform Pilate that he had no power over Him that had not been given to him by His Heavenly Father. Jesus never sought to change a single civil code. He never told His disciple to attempt to change a single civil code. Jesus called men to repentance toward God and faith in Himself.

Peter and John were called in by the Sanhedrin, and threatened not to preach in the name of Jesus Christ any longer. Peter nor John argued that they ought to be free to practice their religion as they see fit. They did not proceed to start a movement in support of a law making it illegal to persecute Christians. Rather than do these things, the disciples gathered together and corporately petitioned God for even greater boldness to speak out in the name of Christ. Later in Acts 5, the Apostles are once again threatened, imprisoned, and even beaten for preaching the gospel. Yet, their response was not to start a movement for religious freedom, to end religious persecution and suffering or anything like that. Instead, they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer directly for the name of Christ.

Stephen is another example of a NT leader that had the opportunity to engage in the legal authorities in his culture. He stood before them and gave them the gospel and preached repentance. Stephen was unjustly murdered simply for preaching the gospel. No one started a movement to change the civil codes. Immediately after Stephen’s martyr, a great persecution arose against the church in Jerusalem. And they scattered. They got out of dodge. They did not engage in civil disobedience, demanding their right to worship freely without persecution. They did not have the same foolish expectations that modern American Christians have.

Paul was another NT leader that experienced the unpleasant experience of being on the wrong side of the civil authorities. When given the opportunity to make his defense, Paul gave his personal testimony and shared the gospel with Felix. Paul did the exact same thing with Agrippa. It was clear that Paul was interested in converting Felix and Agrippa. He showed not even the slightest interest in changing the civil codes or dictating how the governing authorities ought to govern. He was after their heart!

Christians in America are suffering from the delusion that the constitution is a document to which Christians ought to appeal to defend themselves. Those who say that Kim Davis ought not resign but instead, resist, do so not from an exegetical standpoint but rather from a political one. The entire argument for Kim Davis’ defense is political at its core, not exegetical. The presupposition is that Christians ought to fight for their constitutional rights! Additionally, there are others that think Christians can be salt and light by changing the civil codes. Such changes are external only and at best provide an outward show of morality. Additionally, there is no hint of this behavior in the New Testament Church. Even though John the Baptist, Jesus Christ, Peter, John, James, Stephen, and Paul all had the chance to speak to the injustice of the civil code in their day, not one of them did so. They had other interests, other priorities. And so too should we. The message that the Church has for America is simple: repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

The Christian Community

I wrote in a previous blog post that the term Christian is a term that carries with it a very narrow and distinct meaning. Furthermore, I argued that the only proper source for understand the term ‘Christian’ is the Scriptures of Christian theism, also known as the Bible. I pointed out that from the very beginnings of Christianity, the term Christian was synonymous with Disciple. Without getting into too much technical jargon then, we can say that the Christian community is quite simply that community of people that have entered into the master-disciple relationship. This arrangement is governed by the biblical term we call the New Covenant. Ignoring what passes as Christianity in American and western cultures, I am going to talk about entrance into and life within the community of disciples of Jesus Christ as governed by the divine arrangement known as the New Covenant. It is this structure and this structure alone that the New Testament is talking about when it talks about the Church, when it talks about being a Christian.

To begin with, it is important that we make sure we are properly identifying the community of disciples, which we call in modern times, the Church. According to Jesus Christ, His Church did not exist until He built it sometime after Matt. 16:18. Christ said to Peter, οἰκοδομήσω μου τὴν ἐκκλησίαν, I will build my Church, indicating that the Church did not exist at this time and indicating that the Church would have a very specific identity as belonging to Christ. Jesus said that the Church would be His Church. This points to a very specific identity. A weakened ecclesiology has only added to the problem of the identity crisis around the terms Christian and Church in contemporary western cultures mentioned on my previous post. In Acts 5:11 great fear is said to come over the church. Paul is said to have persecuted the church. The church is said at one point to have enjoyed peace, meaning a temporary reprieve from persecution. The point is that when the Bible talks about the Church, it is talking about something very specific. It is talking about the community of disciples that have been called out of relationship with the world and into the master-disciple relationship with Christ. Jesus informed His disicples that no one in this community of disciples would be allowed to remain and fellowship if they insisted on living a lifestyle defined by unrepentant sin (Matt. 18:15-18). So the Church is a community of individuals that have entered into a master-disciple relationship with Christ whose lives reflect an attitude of intolerance toward continuous sinful living, an attitude of love for that community, and an acceptance of all that Christ teaches and demands. In other words, the Church is a group of people that have accepted without question or hesitation the teachings and ethic of Jesus Christ viewing Him as their Lord, their Savior, their Master, and their God.

So how does a person go from their relationship with the world to the master-disciple relationship pictured in the New Testament Scripture? First, they do not enter that relationship as an independent act of the will. Becoming a Christian is not simply a rational or emotion decision left to the discretion to the individual. Jesus said that a person must be γεννηθῇ ἄνωθεν, born from above, or born again. A human being is entirely unable to be born from above or to be born again. John tells us that Christians are not born by the will of the flesh, but rather, they are born of God. Water baptism does not make a person a Christian. Signing a card and joining a church does not make a person a Christian. Attending church your entire life does not make one a Christian. Reading the Bible and giving to the church and even to the poor does not make one a Christian. Getting emotional about Jesus and crying or feeling a certain way about Jesus does not make a person a Christian. Only God can make a person a Christian.

Unbelievers do not go through a process of hearing the arguments for Christ, evaluating them objectively, and then decide that Christianity makes sense. Unbelievers do not observe the love of God at the cross and consider that event and think that God’s love is pretty impressive and decide to join up. The Christian Scripture describes unbelievers as alienated and hostile in their minds toward God. In other words, the Christian message has no hope of being fairly treated in the mind of an unregenerate person. Either the unregenerate mind will reject the message overtly or covertly. Overt rejection is the outright disposition that Christianity is absurd. There is no question about this attitude toward the Christian message. It is easy to see. It is outspoken against Christ and the Christian message. The covert rejection of Christ and the Christian message is the more dangerous form. This can range of apparent acceptance of Christ, baptism, joining a community to the more simple wink and nod in the direction of Christ. Make no mistake about it, both those who reject Christ overtly and those who reject Him covertly are outside the boundary of the community of faith even though the latter group may appear to be inside the circle.

The entrance into the Christian community is granted by an act of supernatural work of the Holy Spirit on the individual. Titus 3:5 tells us that God saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. The Greek word παλιγγενεσίας is an idiom literally meaning to be born again. It refers to a complete change of life and outlook. The work is said to be completed by the Holy Spirit as opposed to anything we could do. This is the only way for one to enter the Christian community. Jesus said I am the way, the truth, and the life, no one comes to the Father but through me (Jn. 14:6) He is the door through which every person must enter into the community of faith.

Entering through Christ means surrendering to Him entirely. It means embracing His beliefs and teachings. It means pursuing his ethics. It means making His values your values. It means accepting His Word without question or hesitation. It is one thing to seek understanding regarding His word, but quite another to call it into question as being binding or true.

There is a clear demarcation in Scripture around those in a Master-disciple relationship with Christ and those who are in relationship with the world. The sons of God and the sons of the devil are obvious. How do we know? By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother (1 Jn. 3:10). The Christian life is defined by a life of love and righteousness. It is not defined by a life of love as defined by the unregenerate mind. Both holy living and love define Christian living. It cares about truth just as much as it cares about others.

Michael Horton writes, “Jesus has been dressed up as a corporate CEO, life coach, culture-warrior, political revolutionary, philosopher, copilot, cosufferer, moral example, and partner in fulfilling our personal and social dreams. But in all of these ways, are we reducing the central character in the drama of redemption to a prop for our own play?” [Horton, Christless Christianity, 25]

“Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood. 29 “I know that after my departure savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; 30 and from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away the disciples after them. 31 “Therefore be on the alert, remembering that night and day for a period of three years I did not cease to admonish each one with tears (Acts 20:28-31).